The Hill reports today:

Despite keeping Defense Secretary Robert Gates in the Pentagon, President-elect Obama's transition team informed 90 Bush appointees their services will not be needed after Inauguration Day.

It's worth pointing out that another roughly 160 political appointees were kept on. But here at TPMmuckraker, we were more interested in what came next.

The paper reported that, in response to the Obama team's move, Jim O'Beirne, the special assistant to the secretary of defense for White House liaisons, sent an email to the dismissed DOD staffers, in which he suggested that they were being removed by political opponents as a result of their effectiveness in carrying out Bush administration policies.

Reports The Hill:

In the email, O'Beirne tried to assure the soon-to-be displaced employees that the decisions were based on "policy change in the Obama administration" and not based on performance.

However, he said, if employees "harbor residual doubts" then they can "content yourself with the likelihood that it was your outstanding performance as a Bush appointee that drew the opposition's attention to you."

"In that regard, you may take justifiable satisfaction that you were among the first to be chosen," O'Beirne wrote.

Now, this way of thinking -- that being removed by "the opposition" (that is, the man who'll be our president) is a badge of honor, because it shows that you were committed to implementing the policies of the previous president -- is misguided coming from anyone.

But The Hill doesn't note that in the case of O'Beirne, a longtime GOP operative who's married to the conservative commentator Kate O'Beirne, it's perhaps not surprising. Consider this excerpt from a Washington Post story from 2006:

After the fall of Saddam Hussein's government in April 2003, the opportunity to participate in the U.S.-led effort to reconstruct Iraq attracted all manner of Americans -- restless professionals, Arabic-speaking academics, development specialists and war-zone adventurers. But before they could go to Baghdad, they had to get past Jim O'Beirne's office in the Pentagon.

To pass muster with O'Beirne, a political appointee who screens prospective political appointees for Defense Department posts, applicants didn't need to be experts in the Middle East or in post-conflict reconstruction. What seemed most important was loyalty to the Bush administration.

O'Beirne's staff posed blunt questions to some candidates about domestic politics: Did you vote for George W. Bush in 2000? Do you support the way the president is fighting the war on terror? Two people who sought jobs with the U.S. occupation authority said they were even asked their views on Roe v. Wade.

In other words, O'Beirne led the disastrous process in which key posts in the Coalition Provisional Authority were given to Heritage Foundation research assistants who knew nothing about Iraq but were loyal to the GOP. And we all know how that turned out.

So perhaps it's to be expected that O'Beirne would continue to see government only through the prism of politics. Still, it's an outlook that's rarely expressed so crassly.

Thanks to reader W.M. for the tip.

The New York Times and Pro Publica got an advanced look at a report on the American reconstruction of Iraq -- and it's not pretty.

The report concludes, in the words of the Times and Pro Publica, that even now, "the United States government has in place neither the policies and technical capacity nor the organizational structure that would be needed to undertake such a program on anything approaching this scale."

And it quotes Colin Powell saying that, in the months after the invasion, DOD "kept inventing numbers of Iraqi security forces -- the number would jump 20,000 a week! 'We now have 80,000, we now have 100,000, we now have 120,000.'"

But here's our favorite detail:

When the Office of Management and Budget balked at the American occupation authority's abrupt request for about $20 billion in new reconstruction money in August 2003, a veteran Republican lobbyist working for the authority made a bluntly partisan appeal to Joshua B. Bolten, then the O.M.B. director and now the White House chief of staff. "To delay getting our funds would be a political disaster for the President," wrote the lobbyist, Tom C. Korologos. "His election will hang for a large part on show of progress in Iraq and without the funding this year, progress will grind to a halt." With administration backing, Congress allocated the money later that year.

There was no evidence in the story that the Times and Pro Publica had offered Korologos a chance to respond, so TPMmuckraker contacted him. He responded in an email:

They did NOT give me a chance to comment. That all came from a 3 page memo I wrote on strategy for passing that first Iraq supplemental in 2003. Some $60 (b) billion was for the military side and $20 (b) billion was for the civilian side. The next sentence said, "The quicker we succeed at CPA the quicker our 150,000 boys will come marching home again."

That response doesn't do much to change the clear impression created by the IG report that Korologos cited President Bush's need to get reelected as a reason to support spending $20 billion of taxpayer money. And that OMB ultimately went along with the request.

Here are some other eyebrow-raising nuggets from the report:

In an illustration of the hasty and haphazard planning, a civilian official at the United States Agency for International Development was at one point given four hours to determine how many miles of Iraqi roads would need to be reopened and repaired. The official searched through the agency's reference library, and his estimate went directly into a master plan. Whatever the quality of the agency's plan, it eventually began running what amounted to a parallel reconstruction effort in the provinces that had little relation with the rest of the American effort.

And...

Money for many of the local construction projects still under way is divided up by a spoils system controlled by neighborhood politicians and tribal chiefs. "Our district council chairman has become the Tony Soprano of Rasheed, in terms of controlling resources," said an American Embassy official working in a dangerous Baghdad neighborhood. " 'You will use my contractor or the work will not get done.'"

And here's a passage that won't exactly boost Donald Rumsfeld's already rock-bottom reputation for knowing what he was talking about:

On the eve of the invasion, as it began to dawn on a few American officials that the price for rebuilding Iraq would be vastly greater than they had been told, the degree of miscalculation was illustrated in an encounter between Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary, and Jay Garner, the retired lieutenant general who had hastily been named the chief of what would be a short-lived civilian authority called the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance.

The history records how Mr. Garner presented Mr. Rumsfeld with several alternative rebuilding plans, including one that would include projects across Iraq.

"What do you think that'll cost?" Mr. Rumsfeld asked of the more expansive plan.

"I think it's going to cost billions of dollars," Mr. Garner said.

"My friend," Mr. Rumsfeld replied, "if you think we're going to spend a billion dollars of our money over there, you are sadly mistaken."

In a way he never anticipated, Mr. Rumsfeld turned out to be correct: before that year was out, the United States had appropriated more than $20 billion for the reconstruction, which would indeed involve projects across the entire country.

The report was compiled by Stuart Bowen, a Republican lawyer who serves as the special inspector general for postwar reconstruction in Iraq. The Times and Pro Publica obtained their copies from people outside Bowen's office. The report will be presented February 2nd at a Congressional hearing.

Moments ago, officials with the Department of Justice wrapped up a press conference at which they are publicizing the charges -- previously contained in a sealed indictment -- against the five former Blackwater guards charged with manslaughter in the deadly September 2007 shootings of 17 unarmed Iraqi civilians.

The case has been assigned to a US District Court in Washingotn DC, but defense lawyers want the case moved to Utah, where one of the former guards lives, and where they would presumably find a more conservative, pro-gun jury, reports the Associated Press.

The ex-guards could face 30-year sentences under an anti-machine gun law designed to target drug offenders.

We're also seeing an interesting emerging defense strategy of suggesting that DOJ is bowing to Iraqi pressure: "We are confident that any jury will see this for what it is: a politically motivated prosecution to appease the Iraqi government," Steven McCool, who represents one of the defendants, told the AP.

One ex-Blackwater guard, Jeremy Ridgewater, has already come to a plea deal with prosecutors, pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter.

Blackwater is the largest security contractor in Iraq.

Late Update: In a lengthy statement emailed to TPMmuckraker, Blackwater responds:

Blackwater does not have access to all of the information gathered by federal investigators. Based on the information available to us, we understand that these individuals acted within the rules set forth for them by the government and that no criminal violations occurred.

...

As noted by the Department of Justice during its press conference, Blackwater as a company has not been charged with any crimes, and neither have any of the hundreds of other Blackwater professionals serving in Iraq.

Late Late Update: Read the court documents:
- Indictment against Blackwater
- Jeremy Ridgewater charges
- Jeremy Ridgewater plea deal

Looks like our old friends at Defense Solutions are back in the news.

You remember them. They're the Pennsylvania-based defense company that retained former GOP congressman Curt Weldon -- who's currently under investigation for corruption in regard to his ties to his daughter's lobbying firm -- as a strategic advisor.

Weldon recently pushed deals on behalf of Defense Solutions between Russian and Ukrainian weapons suppliers and the Iraqi and Libyan governments. Brokering such deals is legally murky, according to Wired magazine, because Libya and the Russian arms export agency are on U.S. blacklists.

And Defense Solutions' CEO, Tim Ringgold was accused by a Ukrainian government official of forging his name on a signed letter officiating that deal.

So we were interested to see the company make a special appearance this weekend in the long New York Times story on Ret. Gen. Barry McCaffrey's myriad conflicts of interest.

McCaffrey, the Times reports, was hired by Defense Solutions on June 15, 2007 to advocate for a similar arms deal. But he didn't mention that affiliation, says the Times, when he wrote a letter to General David Petraeus "strongly recommending Defense Solutions and its offer to supply Iraq with 5,000 armored vehicles from Eastern Europe. 'No other proposal is quicker, less costly, or more certain to succeed,' he said."

The paper continues:

Nor did he disclose it when he went on CNBC that same week and praised the commander Defense Solutions was now counting on for help -- "He's got the heart of a lion" -- or when he told Congress the next month that it should immediately supply Iraq with large numbers of armored vehicles and other equipment.

McCaffrey has had no luck so far getting the deal through for Defense Solutions, but they haven't given up hope yet - the Times reports that he is currently back advocating in Iraq on a trip sponsored by the Pentagon.